MEXICO:
Is the Freeing Up of
Agricultural Trade
Really New?
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS)
- The elimination of all
barriers to imported
maize under the North
American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) will
ruin Mexico’s rural
areas, according to
activists and small
farmers who are
demanding that the
measure be revoked. But
the free market which
opened on Jan. 1 has in
fact been in effect for
the past nine years.
Canada, Mexico and the
United States agreed in
1994, when NAFTA came
into force, that the
final stage of the
gradual freeing up of
the region’s
agricultural markets
would take place in
2008, with the removal
of tariffs and quotas
for maize and beans --
staple foods in Mexico
-- as well as sugar and
powdered milk.
Calling Jan. 1, 2008 "a
dire day for
agricultural trade is an
error or a trick,"
because the government
has been authorising
tariff-free imports of
maize on a yearly basis
since 1996, to cover the
shortfall in local
production, trade
consultant Luis de la
Calle told IPS.
If any harm has arisen
from opening the market
for maize, it has
already happened and
there will be no
difference now that the
tariffs have formally
been eliminated, along
with the need for
authorisation before
importing, said de la
Calle, who was deputy
minister of trade
negotiations for Mexico
during the
administrations of
Presidents Ernesto
Zedillo (1994-2000) and
Vicente Fox (2000-2006).
Some 200 opponents of
NAFTA, who blame the
free trade treaty for
most of the ills that
plague Mexico’s farming
sector, closed one of
the 15 border crossings
into the U.S.
intermittently on
Tuesday. On Wednesday a
similar number
demonstrated outside the
U.S. embassy in Mexico
City.
Miguel Colunga, leader
of the National Campaign
in Defence of Food
Sovereignty and the
Revitalisation of Rural
Mexico, told IPS that
the 300 social and
campesino (small farmer)
organisations that make
up the campaign will not
rest until the
agricultural chapter of
NAFTA is renegotiated.
The campaigners, whose
banner is "Sin maíz no
hay país, sin frijol
tampoco ¡Pon a México en
tu boca!" (roughly: No
maize means no Mexico,
and so does no beans:
Eat Mexican!), want the
Mexican border closed to
trade in maize and beans
until the country has
become competitive.
Freedom to import should
only be allowed if local
production cannot meet
domestic demand, they
insist.
"Our group is growing,
and there is a good
climate to press for
renegotiation," said
Colunga, after
announcing that a number
of campesino and social
associations will mount
a "huge" march in the
Mexican capital on Jan.
31 to further their
demands.
He also said that
lawmakers have promised
to issue a document
defining their position
in favour of urging the
government to
renegotiate NAFTA.
Contacts have already
been made with the
authorities to arrange
talks on the subject, he
said.
But trade experts like
de la Calle and lawyers
who specialise in
agricultural matters
believe that
renegotiations of the
free trade agreement are
unlikely.
The dismantling of
tariff structures agreed
by NAFTA has been
carried out chapter by
chapter, and all that
remains is to eliminate
restrictions on free
trade in used cars, in
January 2009.
The North American trade
instrument does not
include a commitment to
do away with farm
subsidies, an area in
which the U.S. is a
world champion.
The government of
conservative Mexican
President Felipe
Calderón has announced
that it is not in favour
of renegotiating NAFTA,
and in any case will
help the campesinos with
more programmes and
resources to enable them
to face the competition
from abroad.
When NAFTA terms were
agreed, the government
of former President
Carlos Salinas
(1988-1994) was sure
that there would be
enough time to prepare
the agricultural sector
for full market opening
in 2008.
But this was not so. "In
fact, the governments
left campesinos to their
own devices and made
cuts in all the support
mechanisms, and
emigration to the U.S.
and to the cities
increased," Colunga
said.
Colunga, who raises
sorghum on his
10-hectare property in
the state of Chihuahua
in northern Mexico, says
he has had to make an
enormous effort every
year to avoid going
bankrupt.
Twenty million people
out of a total Mexican
population of 109
million live in the
rural areas, and 75
percent of them are
poor. Barely one-third
of rural labourers have
employment benefits, and
there is a steady flow
of migrants towards
Mexican cities and the
United States.
Of the country’s 31
million hectares of
cultivated land, less
than one million produce
crops for export. The
rest is used to grow
food largely for
subsistence, with the
surplus being sold on
the domestic market.
In terms of overall farm
productivity, Mexico
cannot compete with the
United States. However,
it is the main exporter
of certain products like
tomatoes, lettuce,
broccoli, avocadoes and
mangoes to its northern
neighbour.
Maize was originally
domesticated in Mexico
some 9,000 years ago and
is still the staple food
in the local diet.
Mexico produces 19
million tonnes a year,
compared to 300 million
tonnes a year grown in
the United States.
For a Mexican farmer,
the cost of growing a
hectare of maize is 300
times higher, and the
yield 3.5 times lower,
than for a farmer in the
U.S., according to the
non-governmental
National Campesino
Federation (CNC).
Every farmer in the U.S.
is subsidised to the
tune of an average
20,000 dollars a year,
while in Mexico
government subsidies are
no more than an annual
770 dollars per farmer,
the CNC says.
In the U.S., 32 million
hectares are devoted to
maize, used for human
and animal consumption,
and also to produce
ethanol, a biofuel. In
Mexico maize is grown on
8.5 million hectares.
A study by the
Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), to
which Mexico and the
world’s most powerful
economies belong, says
that state support for
Mexican agriculture
during the years NAFTA
has been in force was
too low, and was
distributed mainly in
the rich northern
states.
Total support for the
Mexican agricultural
sector between 1991 and
1993 was estimated at
3.3 billion dollars. For
the period 2003-2005 it
was higher, at seven
billion dollars.
However, this was a
nominal increase rather
than a raise in real
terms, says the OECD in
its study Agricultural
and Fisheries Policies
in Mexico.
As a percentage of gross
domestic product (GDP),
government support for
Mexico’s rural areas
tumbled from three
percent of GDP in the
1991-1993 period to 0.9
percent in 2003-2005,
the OECD report says.
Although most
organisations that
oppose free trade in
farm products attribute
Mexico’s agricultural
and livestock problems
to NAFTA, studies by the
Economic Commission for
Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC) claim
that backwardness in the
rural sector is due to a
number of factors, such
as lack of state
support, migration and
climate problems.
Colunga said that unlike
some of his
fellow-campaigners, he
does not think that
NAFTA is the cause of
all the country’s rural
problems.
"The problems we have in
Mexico’s rural areas
date from the 1980s,
before NAFTA, when our
governments turned their
backs on farming. Then
during the opening of
the markets they didn’t
do their job in terms of
supporting us, and
that’s how we’ve got to
where we are," he said.
The Calderón
administration says that
the liberalisation of
the market should not be
seen only as a threat
but also as an
opportunity, because
just as Mexico has
eliminated its
agricultural trade
barriers, so have Canada
and the United States.
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